Guest Editorial

Breaking Out of the Bus Trap

By JW Madison

On June 22, the City Council passed the extension of our famous Transportation Tax along to the voters for consideration in October; a reasonable and public-minded course of action, unless you count the arbitrary anti-rail preconditions and exclusions offered by a couple of councilors. But with these “amendments” or without, rail transit is in trouble in Albuquerque.

How did rail become a four-letter word here (and here almost alone), and what can we rail advocates do to reverse this?

Rails Inc. sees several reasons for this impasse, absent conspiracy theories. These include our American obsession with upfront cost at the expense of long-term gain, our brainwash-inspired fear of all taxation (good or bad) and mayor-Council rivalries. These three reasons are worth a lot of ink somewhere, but I’d like to examine a fourth: tactical mistakes from our side.

We need rail transit for a stunning number of reasons, reasons I and others have cited in these pages in various letters to the editor. Most of our Western sister cities, of all political colors, have acted on this fact to great benefit for their people, their economies and their environments. So why are we the runt of the litter? Here’s one possible reason:

The 21st Century Transportation Task Force (I was a member) heard several streetcar presentations, geared primarily toward its benefits for rejuvenation along “inner” Central. Little attention was paid to the various other benefits—benefits the whole public can relate to—of the streetcar, and almost none to other rail modes like light rail or urban maglev (magnetic levitation), or to other possible routes like Lomas or I-40.

Thanks to this narrowly considered process and its shallow treatment by the media in general, most of our city’s far-flung people have no idea of what rail can do for them. Albuquerque’s transit argument has been “bumper-stickered” to mean little more than Streetcar on Central vs. No Streetcar on Central.

This is how Rails Inc. thinks we can get local urban rail back on track (sorry):

1) Establish and publicize a long-term transit plan. We need an easily understood program addressing questions like where, what, why and for whom? What kinds of land use changes are we after? Would we rather be innovators or followers? How do we pay for it?

2) Fit all transit proposals to this plan. What are the comparative virtues and drawbacks of streetcar, light rail, maglev and various sizes of buses? What are the long-run (I said long-run, not tomorrow morning) costs and benefits? How do we tie the modes together seamlessly? What about neighborhood transit?

3) Promote all proposals, especially rail proposals, with regard to their benefits to the entire city and to our visitors. Most of us are not residents—or developers—of Downtown, EDO or Nob Hill. What about fuel/energy economy? Smooth on-time ride? Connections to many destinations? Reduction of death, injury, congestion and pollution? Thrifty use of land and materials? Low maintenance? Long system life? Is modern streetcar the best kind of rail to start out with? Is Central the best place to stick it?

Besides rail freaks like us, a few of our local leaders and more than a few regular people know that rail is essential to achieve the above benefits. Some of us have put forth our own pet ideas as to what kind of rail to put in first and where to put it. What we haven’t done yet is convince enough Albuquerqueans and their city councilors just how damn right we are.